and then i became hollow
by templetonfugate
Summary: He had expected to die with this knowledge. Not even Seba could pry the secret from him, and if anyone deserved to know what happened then it was the aging quartermaster. As it was, Vancha would have to be the only other person to know of this. One-Shot


As if to prove that Larten's life could never be sensible, sleep evaded him even as his bones ached from hours of running. The cave was dim and damp, the rocky floor cold as a sheet of ice, but he could just faintly make out the entrance in the distance and glowing from it a wavering beam of light that grew in intensity with each passing minute.

There was no greater compliment Larten could bestow upon his newest assistant than that he did not snore. Even with his heightened senses, Larten had to focus to hear the boy's soft breathing. Even his heartbeat, that steady pitter-patter against his ribcage, was easier to hear. If nothing else, the sound brought a smile to Larten's face.

Many nights years before he had sat awake, the boy near his side, pondering the ever present questions that filled his head. Though he had felt destiny's hand clutch his shoulder that night at the theater, what truly had possessed him to blood the boy? Why hadn't reason kicked in, even if it had just been to take the boy but wait until he was older to enter him into the clan, as his own master had done for him?

The questions remained but their power did not, the words now hollow and flat. With the vampaneze on the offence, he hardly had time to question destiny, let alone find a reason to. Larten's life was his own, as were his choices. No amount of musing would change the past, and at times he doubted if it could even move the course of the future.

Oh, if Hibernius could hear his thoughts now!

"Larten?"

As if on command, he stiffened. "You're still awake?" Though his voice was low it lacked little sting.

"I could ask the same of you." Though the light was weak, Larten didn't need it. He could all but feel the prince's smirk.

"What concerns you so, Your Majesty?"

"I could have you executed for speaking to me in that tone."

"With the way things are going, I might just take you up on that offer."

"Larten, the last thing I want to see is you plunging into a sea of stakes." Any joy and mockery had melted from his voice. His words slit through Larten's skin as easily as his shurikens.

They were silent for a moment. Darren slept on.

"I've been meaning to ask you something, but circumstances kept me from it until now." He paused, and when Vancha spoke again his words were slow, as if he just barely dared to speak them. "This war... Are you pleased with it? Just a few decades ago you were all but herding your fellow generals into one."

Larten's throat tightened, as if trapping his voice inside of him. Back in the Mountain, he'd been able to brush off such questions. Though he was no prince, few had forgotten the rumors of his near election and treated him as such.

A lie surely would get him thrown into the Hall of Death. Larten's heart was heavy but his voice was sure. "Were it not for that damned Leopard, I'd hate the war more than Smalt ever could have."

"Really?"

"I can assure you of that. The years have quieted me."

Vancha spoke nothing else; there was something about the silence surrounding them that unnerved Crepsley. It was as if anything could slip into that empty space surrounding them - hate, fear, memories, _ghosts._

He had expected to die with this knowledge. Not even Seba could pry the secret from him, and if anyone deserved to know what happened then it was the aging quartermaster. Perhaps once the war ended, Larten would have the heart to tell him. But that was just another possibility on a long list of ifs, one that hardly reached the top.

As it was, Vancha would have to be the only other person to know of this.

"Randel Chayne has never done any wrong to me. Until the war, no vampaneze ever truly had."

Vancha made no reply. At first Larten thought it was because enough had been said already and he'd done nothing to engender further questions. But that wasn't it, at least if the tension in the air served as any indication. This was something only Larten could fix, lest the words left unspoken choked them both.

"Wester killed Alicia and I was all the fool because of it. Chayne himself was a victim all his own, though even now I still think of him as the luckier of the two of us."

As soon as the words left his lips, his stomach tightened. The burden his secret had put on his shoulders for so long was replaced by anger, not at Vancha but at himself. If anything, he was likely confirming the prince's longheld convictions. Larten just as easily could have proclaimed himself an idiot and that would have been enough for the prince.

Again silence.

"You know of my assistant?" With each passing day it seemed harder and harder to call Darren that. Most vampires never stayed with their masters this long, at least not without a period of separation. Prince or not, Darren was a credit to the clan and the sort of pupil most vampires could only dream of having. If he were to walk away now as his own agent, he'd make decisions no stupider than Larten had in his youth. And perhaps that was what kept Larten at the boy's side - he'd no sooner wish his mistakes on him then he would famine or disease.

No, that wasn't quite it. Darren truly was a part of his life, a feature of his existence that he could no more imagine himself without than his scar or cape.

"Of course I do. I'd like to think I know him quite well, though how he puts up with you is still a mystery."

"You have always spoken so kindly of me, Sire." He held back a sigh. "The things Darren has faced I never would have wanted for him. Yes, a vampire's life is hard, but few in the clan would scoff at a deep friend's betrayal. From the way he spoke of that boy, you would have thought he and Leopard were brothers."

"A brother is always the last one you'd expect to betray you."

"Aye."

There was more Larten could have told him - of Sylvia's discovery and his duel with Wester, but every time he tried to speak the words died on his lips.

The luck of the vampires was with them that morning. After some time, Vancha slipped off into sleep beneath his blanket of hides, and Larten quickly followed.


End file.
